Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger or a Single Story

 Chimamanda Adichie is a Nigerian story-teller that comes from a middle-aged family. When she was a little girl, she learned to read and write as all normal kids from middle to high classes.  In this period of time, she became especially aware of British books and how they were convincing her that they always had to include foreigners in their stories . The influence of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye changed her perception towards her own stories, because she realized that human beings with her characteristics, “girls with the skin color of chocolate, who kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature”.

Chimamanda’s family worked on helping children that were living in extremely poor conditions; Fide was one of the lucky ones. Adichie visited Fide’s family once, where she was impressed by the capability of the entire family. This reminded her to the situation she experienced with her English roommate and how she felt sorry for her even before she met her, just because of the fact that she was natively from Africa.

The writer also emphasizes on the ability and power of hearing stories, and how these can become people’s realities, inclusively some of them making it to the definite story of a person.  Adichie mentions also that “that is how to create a single story, show people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become”.  Finally, we can notice that she mostly talks about Africa and how stories tend to describe an idea or prejudice of it as “a place of negatives, of difference, of darkness”. With this in mind, she branches of to the controversial topic of stereotypes and equality in different countries, mentioning also how important stories are, to one day be able to change this.